1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to collecting user feedback and more specifically to techniques for selectively allowing users to repeatedly submit positive feedback for a single instance of content.
2. Description of the Related Art
A virtual world is a simulated environment in which users may interact with virtual objects and locations of the virtual world. Each user may control a respective avatar through which the user may interact with other users' avatars in the virtual world. An avatar generally provides a graphical representation of an individual within the virtual world environment. Avatars are usually presented to other users as two or three-dimensional graphical representations that resemble a human individual. Frequently, virtual worlds allow multiple users to enter the virtual environment and interact with one another. Virtual worlds are said to provide an immersive environment, as they typically appear similar to the real world and objects tend to follow rules related to gravity, topography, locomotion, physics and kinematics. Of course, virtual worlds can suspend or alter these rules as well as provide other imaginative or fanciful environments. Users typically communicate with one another through their avatars using text messages sent between avatars, real-time voice communication, gestures displayed by avatars, symbols visible in the virtual world, and the like.
In addition, some virtual worlds enable users to create content within the virtual world. For example, many virtual worlds allow users to customize their avatars within the virtual world. As another example, other virtual worlds are configured to allow users to create a personalized house for their avatar. For instance, an arctic-themed virtual world could allow each user to customize their own penguin avatar and to customize an igloo for their avatar to live in. Such a virtual world may further allow users to view the user-created content of other users. For instance, a first user's avatar could view the igloo of a second user in order to see how the second user has personalized his/her igloo. Doing so provides a social aspect to the user-generated content, as this content may be visible to other users of the virtual world. This, in turn, may provide a starting point for conversations between the users of the virtual world and may further provide an incentive for the users to put effort into creating personalized content.
Additionally, content sharing websites account for some of the most popular websites today and oftentimes also include user-generated content. Generally, content sharing websites allow users to post content and share posted content with other users. For example, a user may upload a user-created video to a content sharing website, and then share the uploaded video with other users. Furthermore, a number of content sharing websites also allow users to create new content, which can then be shared with other users of the site. As an example, a content sharing website may enable users to create images using the website, and then share the created images with other users of the website.
In an effort to learn a user's preferences and to improve the user's experience, many applications include mechanisms to solicit and collect user feedback regarding the application. For instance, an application could prompt a user with a survey regarding the user's experience while using the application, and the developers of the application could then use feedback collected from the survey to guide future development of the application. As another example, a user on a social networking site could identify content that the user likes (e.g., a particular brand of good, a specific website, etc.), and the social networking site could then display an indication of this content within the user's profile. Doing so enables the user to inform other users of content that the user likes. Additionally, the social networking site may collect information regarding instances of content and types of content that each user likes, and could analyze such information to determine the interests of the users. Such interests information could be used, for instance, to identify relevant advertisements to present to particular users of the social networking site.